By Jacob
Bravo enters Baghdad and set up an HQ in a cigarette factory, where Brad finds out that Kocher and his team are being demoted and censured for the Captain America situation last week. You know, when he went crazy that one time? And they pulled him off that Iraqi guy he was abusing, and then the random guy decided they were war criminals? So now he's fine, they're screwed -- and yet he still manages to present himself as this Rodney Dangerfield victim of chance and circumstance, such is the balls-out nature of his craziness.
Evan sees his first combat jack and runs in an evasive manner, Lilley's wife joins the Marines and Jacks's wife leaves him, but otherwise Baghdad is not that interesting. They're only patrolling once every three days for a while, but then the orders start changing every five seconds and not making sense. A team of the least appealing Bravo Marines, including Chaffin and Jacks, are stymied in their loot attempts, but luckily are able to use their Recon skills effectively, and destroy some random exec's office somewhere for no real reason other than they're gross.
All the men in Baghdad ask Ray and Doc Bryan for valium, treat children horribly, try to put up giant statues of Bush, and try to fuck Gabe. The moral of the story is, I think, Baghdad would be awesome without all the people in it. Luckily, we're there to kill them all. Nate at first gets pulled into humanitarian shit just like he always knew he would, and is of course deterred by Encino Man -- but the second Baghdad becomes one giant firefight, Encino Man orders Bravo Two on patrol despite having no idea what he's talking about. Nate says no, he isn't getting his men blown up for no reason in the middle of the night, and Encino Man is just like so offended.
Brad starts a campaign to blow up unexploded ordnance -- including a bomb in a garden where little kids play, okay -- and Nate stops him after the first one. Then Battalion orders Patterson to accompany some engineers to mark a mine field at night. Since there's no reason to do that whatsoever, unless you're trying to get people killed, Patterson tells Encino Man to go fuck himself. Hilariously, he immediately runs whining to Captain America and makes him do it instead. Long story short: two casualties, casevaced to nowhere, following a shortcut Cap made up.
Evan says goodbye to the boys -- including a Ripped Fuel-free Ray, who is quiet and even scarier than usual -- and gets some bullshit speech from Ferrando about how the best policy is to ignore all complaints about your men until such time as people die. Which is retarded, but not as retarded as the example he gives Evan, which is that Nate Fucking Fick of all people has a terrible track record, so you see how this makes logical sense. Evan is of course grossed out, and then even more grossed out when Ferrando starts talking about how he gets off on being shot at.
They play football in a soccer field, because what you need with real attack dog aggression is more, pretend aggression on top of it. Encino Man screams his idiot head off, because he thinks football is God, and generally acts like a prick until Patterson finally beats the shit out of him, awesomely. On an unrelated but nearly simultaneous note, Ray freaks out and gets his ass handed to him by Rudy, which hurts both their feelings.
Everybody says as many meaningful things about the war and being Marines as they can, in very somber voices. Normally I would say this is a screenwriting issue, but it comes off as powerfully real because if you've been watching at all, you know to what degree these guys are drama queens. I have to say, though, that the last scene of the series is completely awesome: Bravo Two, watching Lilley's footage while Johnny Cash plays, and one by one getting bored with it, until all that's left is Trombley, watching himself kill. Well done.